


Saudade

by cadkitten



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bullying, Canonical Character Death, Dealing With Loss, Depression, Gen, Loss, M/M, Memorials, Photography, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 11:43:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8711323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: Tim's gone and Damian's heartbroken. It's not something he would have ever let onto, but Tim had slowly become someone he looked up to, someone he relied upon to straighten him out when things got tough, and someone he respected. When it falls on him to go through Tim's things, to clean out his apartment because they think he cared the least, he finds something he never expected in the depths of Tim's possessions, something that changes everything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TimmyJaybird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimmyJaybird/gifts).



> I'm here this lovely Holiday season to pull your heart strings, yank it out and then tenderly put it back. Happy Holidays and thanks for being awesome and always there to discuss whatever random DC thing I'm yelling about. I thought, perhaps, we both might want to see one of the boys dealing with Tim's loss (so real to them isn't it?), see them come out the other side _stronger_ , and I sincerely hope you enjoy it.  
> Beta Readers: kate1zena  
> Song[s]: "9月3日の刻印 [Live]" by ムック / "The Last Scene" by MONO / Mix of "aftermath collaboration with キリト (Angelo)" by Sukekiyo and "Gasou" by Kyo
> 
>  
> 
> **Saudade is Portuguese and refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone you love and which is lost.**

__

“If you want to learn what someone fears losing, look at what they photograph.” - M Foley

Damian stood slightly to the side of everyone else that had gathered in the manor. He'd been told to show up despite his current business with the Teen Titans. Bruce had been nothing short of _crystalline_ on that point and it had taken what little patience Damian had left to not bite his head off. In the end, he'd only held his tongue because he understood - maybe better than anyone - how hard it was to deal with Tim's death.

Damian had seen thousands of people die, a good amount of them on the other end of his own brutal attacks in his duration under the thumb of the League of Assassins. He'd dealt with the loss of people he trusted in his life, had watched good people die horrible deaths when they were minutes too late on patrol. Hell, Damian had _died_ himself. _Twice_. All of that, all of the combined experiences and not one of them had ever prepared him for losing _Tim_. 

Outwardly, he wore a stone-cold expression, his jaw set and his eyes belaying a very clear vibe of him not wanting to be anywhere near any of the people in this room. He _knew_ the expression he wore, knew it mirrored so many from his _petulant_ childhood, mirrored one he'd given out of impatience _last week_ , and he knew how it would be taken, but he just didn't _care_. He'd never had time to explain himself to someone else, had never found the patience for such asinine endeavors. 

An older gentlemen in a business suit that looked like it had probably seen better days entered the room, took up a position behind Bruce's desk and cleared his throat. The room fell silent and Damian _knew_ why he'd been called here in an instant. _Tim's will._ There was no way it could be anything else with how down-trodden the man looked, with how _shaky_ some of the room's occupants looked.

Damian swallowed down the lump that was rapidly rising in his throat, pursed his lips and told himself to keep a firm hold on his current demeanor. He crossed his arms and waited. There were only seven people in the room aside from the rumpled-suit man, one of whom Damian wasn't familiar with in the least. What it told him in no uncertain terms was that they were all _included_ on the papers that were being lifted from the briefcase. 

He tucked himself further into the corner he'd chosen, just enough room between people to see the guy, but not up front enough to be noticed if someone wasn't looking for him. Leaning against the bookshelf, he tightened the way he was holding his arms, held himself tighter as the guy began reading from the will.

Damian paid only enough attention to understand who was being talked to for the most part, watching Jason come forward and accept something small and silvery that he tucked away immediately, Dick sign for a paper listing what had been left to him. He heard Bruce's name mentioned in shares for the company and Alfred's mentioned in relation to the contents of Tim's accounts. Damian's name came up and he stepped around Bruce and the person he didn't know, moving to sign for a paper listing out what he had inherited, but he didn't look at the paper more than seeing his name on it, folding it and tucking it away in his pocket with trembling fingers.

It was only sheer will that kept him focused on the last person in the room, that forced him to understand they were from a charity organization and that Tim was giving away the earnings from his play on the stock market and the entire contents of his music and book collections to them with the exception being made for anything of sentimental value to any family member. Stephanie was last, her items handed to her from the briefcase, two small envelopes and one medium-sized pouch that she didn't open.

They were all read a very concise message and then the guy excused himself. Damian started to push away from the shelf when Bruce's hand landed on his shoulder, stopping him from retreating. Damian forced the well of emotions back down, clutched at the paper in his pocket as he stood beside his father, somewhat rigidly. Somewhere in the chaos of it, he heard plans being made, understood someone had to dole out everything in Tim's apartment and _deal_ with the rest. Bruce's voice sounded _hard_ , but in a way Damian could identify with: like father, like son. Bruce was grieving and while he was far more rational than he'd been told his father had been when it came to him, he could honestly hear it in his voice that he was hurting just as much.

He heard someone sigh and the hitch of Stephanie's breath as she excused herself from the room, Alfred following after her at Bruce's bidding. Bruce's hand tightened on Damian's shoulder and the next words truly struck _fear_ into Damian's heart. 

"Damian will deal with it. I believe he's more than capable and he has been given a longer period of time away for bereavement than any of us."

Damian's heart jolted in his chest and he squeezed the paper between his fingers, holding back the pleas, the terrified words _begging_ them to change their mind, to not force him to see Tim's death on _this level_. He swallowed down everything that told him he wasn't sure he could do this, bit back the angry words of how no one ever took _his_ emotional well-being into account. They hadn't on his birthday, they hadn't when he'd been _dealing_ with coming back from the dead, nor when he'd pushed himself down the path to redemption for all he'd done with the League, and it stood to reason that they wouldn't _now_ either. 

There was a round of agreement and Damian simply kept silent, accepted the business card from the stranger and quietly informed them he'd pack it all up and set aside a time for pickup before he excused himself, forcibly removing himself from Bruce's grip to do it. 

He forced himself to walk away rather than run, forced himself to get all the way back to his room before he closed the door and _collapsed_ against it, sliding to the floor and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes as the bitter sting of tears assaulted him. He sat there, head bowed as the tears came, relentless and unyielding to his desire for them to stop, his breath hitching in his throat in a way that told of how badly he wanted to _scream_ , of how much that he simply _couldn't_. 

Hands shaking, he wiped them on his jeans and pulled out the crumpled paper, doing his best to smooth it out and read it through the tears that trailed down his cheeks. He found mention of several things that likely meant he'd been left some of Tim's supplies for their job, had been given possession of his computer and all external drives with a notation that they were _Damian's_ , not his guardian's.

It struck Damian just how much Tim could surprise him, even now, even all the way from the grave, and _that_ straightened out his breathing just enough to kick him into gear, just enough to urge him to _get it over with_.

Pushing himself up, he pulled his phone out and sent off a text to his father that he was going to deal with _the situation_ immediately and to not expect him on patrol until it was completed. It wasn't such a large change anyway, wasn't any worse for Bruce than his absence when he was with the Titans. Besides, it wasn't like he hadn't been _replaced_ anyway.

The bitterness on his tongue reminded him to keep his emotions in check, to shove it all down where it _belonged_ and remain civil to his father despite all of his obvious _failures_ at being one. So many children - his own and not - and Bruce still hadn't perfected that particular job. 

He sighed, shoving some overnight items into a shoulder-bag, putting on his leather jacket. He hitched everything up around him, lifted his helmet - a gift that he'd yet to have _proved_ where it came from, but highly suspected Jason - from his desk and trailed out of the room and toward the garage.

He weaved amongst the vehicles, stopping in front of the jade green motorcycle, his fingertips sliding over the paint job before he mounted it and settled, pulling on the helmet and bringing the vehicle to life with a twist of the key. Hitching the bag tighter against himself, he pulled on his gloves and flicked down the visor, maneuvering himself around the other vehicles and out into the bitter cold. 

The streets were wet and his bike kicked up a spray of water behind him, leaving his pants damp and his body shivered slightly as he maneuvered his way into Gotham and toward Tim's apartment. He hadn't asked for a key, hadn't _needed_ to. Tim had given him the access code to the alarm a long time ago and if Damian couldn't pick a simple lock, he was in for a lot worse of a time in Tim's absence than he'd thought. 

Damian parked his bike in the slot right beside Tim's, took a minute to rest his hand on the seat, to just _stand there_ and collect himself as he stared at the beautiful red and matte black of Tim's motorcycle and how many things it reminded him of when situated so very close to his own. 

Hands shaking the slightest, Damian turned away, pocketed his keys and unstrapped his helmet, tucking it under his arm and heading inside. Four flights of stairs later, he ducked out onto Tim's floor and made his way to his apartment, lock pick in hand, gloves tucked away in his pockets. He stepped up to the door, made quick work of the lock while looking like he was struggling to hold his helmet and open the door. 

Once inside, he closed and re-latched the door, disarming and then re-arming the alarm on _stay_ mode before flipping on the lights and settling his helmet down on the couch. He took a moment to remove his bag, jacket, and boots before shedding his pants and rummaging in his bag for his sweats. Once he had them on, he made his way to the small alcove with the washer and dryer, opened it to find an entire load of Tim's laundry just left in the water, smelling faintly of the very peculiar scent of _mold_ that came from clothing left too long in the wash. 

With a sigh, Damian emptied his pockets, pushed his phone into his sweats pocket and deposited his jeans on top, added detergent and turned them all back on. The scent hit him like a slap in the face, reminded him of a dozen times he'd actually _allowed_ Tim in his space, of Tim's friendly smile and the way his eyes had held such _understanding_ , even when Damian had been a brat in return.

Sucking in a shaky breath, he turned away, closed the French doors to the alcove and moved to the front closet, opening it and finding all the moving boxes Tim had stashed there from his last move. Tugging them out and fetching the tape from the top shelf, Damian set about putting the boxes back together and transporting them to the rooms they were labeled for. Three unmarked boxes went in the center of the living room and he pulled out the elegant matte red hard shell suitcase set Tim had probably used all of once and settled one in the bathroom, one in the bedroom, and one on the living room couch. 

It didn't take him long to pack up the items from his list into the largest of the suitcases, to leave it on the couch and make his way back through the house, picking up the various plants and putting them in a milk crate one had been sitting on in the kitchen. He watered them all and then settled it by the door, intent to take it back to Alfred. 

His phone vibrated and he pulled up the picture of Dick's list, shuffling through the house in search of the items written on it, putting them into the suitcase in the bedroom and leaving it at that before he dragged two of the unmarked boxes with him to the bookshelf and began emptying the contents into it, putting aside a few of the more limited edition books to give to Jason, knowing he'd appreciate it, even if he didn't _say_ it. The music went next, all of it except one classical CD and Tim's favorite album, which Damian deposited into the suitcase full of his items. 

With all of that neatly labeled and taped up, He placed them out of the way, next to the only blank wall in Tim's apartment and set about figuring the rest of this shit out. He worked tirelessly for _hours_ , running on little more than diligence and forced brainpower the entire time. Every once in a while he'd find another external hard drive or thumb drive and add it to the ever growing collection in his suitcase. It occurred to him as he put a small SD memory card into the suitcase that somehow _he_ had been given the most private pieces of Tim's collection. _He_ had been entrusted to see every single private thing Tim had, to see him for who he _truly_ was before death had claimed him, and the revelation rocked him to a level so deep that he felt _numb_ in the wake of it. 

Even as he dumped Tim's vitamins and prescriptions into the little red suitcase to be evaluated later, even as he added all the medical supplies Tim had lifted from the cave, he felt as if everything were simply _static_. The world existed, but it did so behind some gauzy otherworldly veil that Damian couldn't quite push past at the moment. Even as he slipped Tim's shampoos and soaps into Ziplock bags and tucked them into _his own_ suitcase, he still couldn't find it in him to truly _react_ to the revelation. 

He emptied the bathroom down to the bare bones, placed the nice towels into the last empty unlabeled box and carefully wrote _Shelter_ across it, knowing that's where Tim would have wanted his nicer things to go, and maybe _that_ was why the universe had seen fit for Damian to be the one to do this. Maybe his consideration for others - a thing he'd learned from _Tim_ \- was what came into play here. 

Leaving the curtain up and a single towel and roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, Damian closed the door behind himself and moved on to the bedroom. All of the nice bedding he added to the box as well as the majority of Tim's clothing. He kept a few things, wouldn't have admitted to single soul that he was _saving_ them for himself, to keep little pieces of Tim around for the rest of his life, wouldn't have ever told a soul that he stood for a full ten minutes, tears streaming down his cheeks as he pressed his face into Tim's favorite hooded sweatshirt. 

Hours later found him in the kitchen, the bedroom packed and the still-good food in Tim's fridge laid out on Damian's plate as he picked at it, unable to do anything more than that, though he knew he _had_ to eat eventually. 

Half of the kitchen later and Damian found himself back in Tim's bedroom, freshly showered and smelling like Tim, curled up in one of the giant t-shirts that Tim had always favored to sleep in beneath the covers Tim had _slept in_ the very same day as he'd left them. When he fell asleep, it was with tears in his eyes and his face shoved into Tim's pillow, his arms around it, clutching it as though it held the power to _bring him back_ , and he imagined what a sorry sight he must make.

\----

Damian spent the following morning just sitting in the midst of the covers on Tim's bed, staring at the now-blank walls, his memory filling in the paintings that had hung there the evening before, supplying him with images of the only other time he'd ever been in this room. He could feel the ghost of Tim's arms around him, could _feel_ the essence of the turmoil that had been within him in those hours. 

That night he'd left Wayne manor in the midst of one of the worst storms they'd had since he'd come to live here, had broken into Tim's apartment and _waited_ on him. By the time he'd come back from patrol, Damian hadn't been able to stop the shaking, hadn't been able to fight the _feeling_ of his own death and rebirth from drawing itself back upon his skin. He'd been _gone_ \- mentally absent - by the time Tim had found him, squeezed in between the couch and the wall and fished him out, tucked him in his arms and _carried_ him to the bedroom to wrap him in all of his blankets, to rock him until he'd been able to _breathe_ again, until he'd been able to tell Tim everything he was feeling. 

It was that night that he learned of Tim's infinite patience and his heart of gold. It was then that he had also learned that Tim had his own secrets, his own demons, and that they weren't so dissimilar to his own, because Tim had opened up in order to create a world where Damian could do so in return. They'd shared until the sun was peaking over the horizon, had slept with Tim propped up against the headboards and Damian curled in his arms, still wrapped in a half dozen blankets. When he'd woken up hours later to the sound of Tim's phone buzzing itself off of the dresser, it had been the longest Damian had _ever_ slept in a single stint.

The memories of that night didn't haunt him like he supposed they could have, didn't plague him as one of the worst times he'd ever had to try to deal with what was happening to him, with what he was on this side of the grave. Instead, he remembered all of the good before the bad. He recalled Tim's quiet voice, the concern that no one else ever had for Damian laced within his every single word, and he recalled Tim's fingers combing through his hair, soothing the ache of how bad he'd been shaking away as they rocked at the most measured pace in the world.

If he were honest, it was one of his fondest memories. 

The realization that he'd never see this room again, never feel Tim's touch or hear Tim's quiet voice lulling him to sleep ever again hit him hard enough that it stole his breath away, left it lodged in his throat, squeezing like a vice, and Damian _knew_ what he had to do. 

Pulling his phone out, he flipped through to his father's contact and dialed it, letting it ring until it went to voice mail – typical for any time he ever tried to call - and waited through the dull message. "I will be making the necessary arrangements to convert Drake's apartment into a safe house, as well as a small base of operations for myself whenever I am back from _business_. I will provide you with the details by this evening." He clicked off the phone and pushed his way out of the sheets, padded through the house to the laundry alcove and transferred the clothing to the dryer, adding a dryer sheet and turning it on. 

He made quick work of his morning routine using the toiletry bag he'd brought with him and then set about modestly re-stocking the bathroom of the items he'd need to have in here - cleaners, all of the first aid supplies and a myriad of the pill bottles he'd tossed in the suitcase the evening before, though not all of them. He placed three towels and washcloths back as well as one hand towel and re-hung the small, framed photograph of a street tabby Tim had undoubtedly picked up at some estate sale or other. A few other basic necessities went into the shelves and he left the rest in the box he'd packed up.

The same treatment was given to the kitchen and the bedroom, returning certain items to the closet and walls, small things that made it feel more like _Tim_ going back on the tops of the dressers: his favorite watch, the single set of cufflinks Bruce had given him three Christmas' ago with TDW engraved on each, a replica of some Egyptian vase that Damian quite liked, and the one painting Damian had spent hours staring at while he'd been in Tim's arms that night. 

In the living room, he took it apart as much as he put it back together with only the barest hints of things. Enough to make him think of Tim, to _know_ Tim from the items he left behind, but not enough to slap anyone coming here in the face with it beyond himself. It was only what _he_ had noticed, what meant something to him because his eyes had lingered on it for longer than perhaps necessary. All the pieces of Tim that he'd stored away in his mind since the one night that had changed how they interacted above all else. 

The final thing he left on the low coffee table was Tim's camera: a Leica M9, a work of art in and of itself if Damian were honest about it. He stashed the case under the table, positioned the camera _just so_ and settled, the memory card in his hand, just staring down at the little piece of plastic in between his fingers. 

Years ago someone had told him a photograph spoke a million words, told a hundred stories without effort, and that had stuck with him for a very long time. Closing his eyes, he called up the _experience_ , willed his mind to recall the sensations, the scents, and the _world_ when he'd been given those words. As they knitted together, he remembered Tim's face, recalled the way it had morphed from completely open to entirely _reserved_ in that single moment. 

Shivering, Damian dredged himself out of the memory, stood and made his way to where he'd unceremoniously dumped all of Tim's computer equipment before he'd started in on the room. Dozens of thumb drives, three external hard drives, two internal drives, and at least thirty camera memory cards littered the table beside Tim's laptop. 

Settling down, Damian plugged in the computer and re-attached the Ethernet cabling, booting it up and waiting on the home screen to come up. Clicking to log into Tim's account, he watched it ask for his biometric scan and he sighed, quietly calculating the road he'd need to take to lift and recreate a fingerprint to get in. The faintest memory of Tim's voice drifted across his mind, the feeling of Tim's hand on his own at age eleven, scanning him into the system with laughter in his voice, amusement that it was having _trouble_ reading Damian's thumb print. He remembered the dull beeps, one after another and the way his annoyance had flared and Tim had dropped whatever strange little charade it had been that had gotten them to that moment. 

Shifting, Damian held his right hand over the scanner and then pressed it down against it, slowly swiping forward, letting it read his thumbprint, waiting as the hard drive light blinked frantically at him until the computer's Welcome screen splashed across the page and the system began to load. 

Sitting back, Damian gazed vacantly at the little thumb print reader, realized that _that_ had to have been around the same time he'd been making the will. All of it, all of the ridiculousness of Tim's _new toy_ had really been him providing Damian a way in should his life come to some abrupt sort of close. 

Rubbing his hands over his eyes, Damian leaned all the way back in the office chair, let it tilt and hold him, let his hands press harder against his eyes as he _let go_ of the pain in his chest again and allowed it to overflow. 

No matter what else Tim had ever been, no matter what anyone else had ever seen, Damian felt like he had - perhaps - seen the deepest into him. Behind _Red Robin_ , behind Tim Drake the consultant, and behind Tim Drake-Wayne the adopted son of Bruce Wayne lay a beautiful person full of every complex emotion known to man, full of brilliance both tapped and untapped, and Damian... he'd been given the privilege of knowing not only the masks, but the _reality_ , and really, nothing could ever compare.

\-----

Damian spent hours drawing up all the necessary paperwork to transfer this house over into _Dick's_ name. It was a very pointed sort of effort, to put it in the name of the one of them that Damian knew would never interfere with whatever Damian wanted to have done with this place, wouldn’t bat an eyelash at it should it be brought up. He crafted all the pieces of it that needed to go to everyone involved, including the landlord given this was a rent-controlled sort of place where things had to be _transferred_ and forged a few things to make it appear legit that Tim had initiated this and shuffled the paperwork over to Dick to sign and back-date. 

By the time he found it in him to order in some Chinese food, he was knee-deep in Tim's photos off of the SD cards. He clicked through the photos idly as he made the call for food, knew he could pay for it with the money he'd found tucked away in Tim's desk drawer. 

The words from the night prior came back to him, allowed him to _see_ the photos for what they were, to engage with them on a level far beyond the usual and he found himself wondering, once again, if Tim hadn't planned this as well. By giving him the indication that he should have every single memory card in the house, he had led him here, to this moment, and perhaps hoped that he'd find that very same conversation in his memory, remember the _look_ on Tim's face and read into it exactly what he _had_.

Damian closed his eyes and gave himself a moment, opened them again and continued on with the photos. Images of street corners lit only by the glow of a streetlamp, time-lapses of Gotham's busiest streets during the night, entire memory cards full of their night life, full of the _beauty_ of it, the pieces behind the dark, gritty, _horrible_ city they fought every single night. He found smiles on people's faces, whimsical looks in the eyes of people at the circus, stunning photos of the acrobats in action. 

Beyond all of that, he found the singular images - between the others - that stuck out more than all of the others: the candid shots of members of their little family, of the Teen Titans, and of Tim himself. There were days' worth of photos Tim had taken either on timer or with remote shutter release and yet others he'd clearly taken for the art they provided. His blood running down the drain, his bare foot and ankle the only evidence it could have been his own, the porcelain gleaming behind the vivid red of flesh blood. A catalogue of every new gash and scar Tim's body had ever collected and the _how_ of it captured in some obscure way just one image beyond it. There were fallen criminals - only a hand cuffed to a pipeline in a dirty alley, a leg and foot twisted at an angle it perhaps shouldn't have been, the spatter of blood on the pavement, a glowing neon sign just beyond. There were photos of one of their cars that Tim had been run off the road in, close-ups of twisted metal and dripping coolant, a photo of the glimmer of transmission fluid puddled on the pavement, the beauty of the mountainside beyond it a stark contrast to the pain the photo held.

The morbidity of some of it captured Damian, brought him in on the idea that Tim had been _more_ than any of them had thought. That Tim had held this obsession, this _fixation_ with cataloguing everything happening to him and no one had ever suspected. 

Card after card went into the computer, more and more of the images that caught Damian's eye being pulled off onto the only brand new USB drive he'd found in the house, cataloguing Tim's world in glimpses that wouldn't give _too much_ away, but just enough, and an _idea_ began to form in his mind. He'd seen and heard about people holding events for their loved ones after their passing, had watched the _grief_ that they felt pull together into something _more_ when they posted the site or published the book, and he began to pull pieces of Tim's life together in a whole other kind of way. He pulled the dates of the photos, began to catalogue them based on _when_ Tim had taken them, _where_ he'd been.

When the food arrived, it was absently that Damian paid and accepted the bag of Chinese and it was with only the spirit of needing sustenance that he ate at all, most of his attention focused solely on creating this catalogue of Tim's life. 

Far into the night, Damian ejected the last SD memory card and made his way to the dryer, settling on the floor in front of it as he'd seen Tim do the few times he'd been here while he had laundry going. He pulled the basket out from beside the dryer and set it aside, opening the dryer and pulling pieces of clothing out one at a time, folding each piece and placing it in the basket.

It was only belatedly that he realized there were tears tracking down his cheeks, that they were the _silent_ kind that allowed you to live in the moment rather than be overwhelmed by the cause of them, and he simply let them exist, making his way into the bedroom and storing away Tim's clothing, allowing himself one moment of _weakness_ , telling himself he would only pretend _once_ that this was just a favor, that tomorrow Tim would be there, would come to stand right beside him and thank him in that quiet voice that was only reserved for Damian.

He returned the basket and settled in for the night, right back in front of the laptop, curled up in Tim's favorite chair, shifting into the position _he_ had always liked best without being fully conscious of it, and inserted the first thumb drive with trembling fingers. 

_Some pain was meant to help_.

\-----

By day three Damian was most of the way through Tim's digital footprint, had delved deep enough into each and every folder to know that Tim had been _meticulous_ in every single letter of the word. He'd kept his records and those of the company backed up to an astonishing degree, had squirreled away things on thumb drives as a precaution. Hell, even the single folder of _intimate_ content Damian had found had been alphabetized by the _act_ being portrayed. Damian had kindly deleted that folder, had wiped the browser's history without a single instant of looking through it, and then had continued on with his exploration of Tim's character.

His bookmarks yielded a Tim that had been orderly but _chaotic_ in some ways, a folder of miscellaneous items showing there were things that even Tim couldn't calculate where they belonged, a rush of links that informed just how active he was on social media and how _free_ he was with the passwords on those sites, given they were all still logged into or had their passwords saved.

Hours and hours of scouring Tim's posted contents on each site showed Damian highs and lows, showed him the _reason_ for a lot of the medications in Tim's bathroom cabinets. He watched the periods where Tim had been truly happy, where he'd been floating on cloud nine and then he watched the dangerous dip of depression, the _suicidal thoughts_ that had plagued Tim for a good portion of his life, and his heart went out to him. 

It was there, too, that Damian pulled some of the most poignant offerings, the things that he could believe were actually Tim's own and placed them between the proper folders on his ever-growing project regarding Tim's life. 

Eight tabs and just as many accounts later, Damian wrote a simple note and copied it onto each, explaining that the user had passed away and posting links to the charities Tim had kept in a bookmark listing, imploring that if anyone wanted to honor his memory that they do so by continuing his generosity towards _other people_. He posted a single photograph of Tim beneath it, of him smiling and at his _happiest_ , and logged out of each and every account just after.

He made the arrangements for the boxes to be picked up by the necessary people, cleaned out the pantry of food that would expire anytime remotely soon and boxed it up and took it downstairs, leaving it with a written note taped to the wall explaining that everyone should have a free meal once in a while. 

The rest of the day was spent scrubbing the place from top to bottom: sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, and dusting every single nook and cranny the place had. 

Once it was spotless and he was certain he'd gone through everything but the front hall closet, Damian packed up all of the drives and the computer itself in the suitcase he'd placed the rest of the items he was taking home in, took out the trash, and prepared to leave it all behind for at least a month.

With a final deep breath, he left the apartment, suitcase and his own overnight bag in hand, and made the call to Alfred to pick him up, knowing everything he had wouldn't make it back on his motorcycle with him, knowing it provided him an _excuse_ to return and understanding that it was - somehow - necessary that he leave it that way.

The close of the door felt like finality and the wind on his face as he stepped out onto the sidewalk minutes later felt like _goodbye_. When the tears came once again, Damian didn't stop them, didn't _bother_ to hide away how he felt from the world. Let them know he _grieved_. Let them see this _weakness_ , because God's help him, it was _strength_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta Readers: kate1zena  
> Song[s]: Mix of "aftermath collaboration with キリト (Angelo)" by Sukekiyo and "Gasou" by Kyo / "咀嚼 (Acoustic Ver.)" by Dir en grey

It was, precisely, two weeks and one day before Damian could stay away no longer. He'd promised himself a month, a single month to find himself again in the midst of what had rapidly proved itself to be one of the most difficult experiences in his lifetime, but staying away became more of a burden than _confronting_ Tim's apartment was.

All of the paperwork had gone through without incident and Damian had paid the sum of the rent and utilities from his own accounts, setting up an auto-deduct for the payments, and turning off all unnecessary accounts Tim had. The only thing on the clock now was the _project_ : something that continually burned a hole in his memory, kept him up when he should have been sleeping and singularly focused during every free moment he held.

Everything in him understood that this was his way of _dealing_ , that while there was no one else to sort his grief out with, no one to _talk to_ , there was this beautiful _creation_ to help him through it instead. There was something glorious about that, something beautiful and singular in the idea that he could honor Tim in such a way.

Even as he settled in front of the last thing he hadn't sorted out of Tim's, even as he dug through the boxes of things Tim hadn't ever unpacked, he felt a sense of calm come over him once again. There was pain beneath it - stark and _real_ \- but it was also a balm to the damage in his heart, a soothing hand carding through his hair in the midst of it all. 

Damian popped open another plastic bin and extracted a small Polaroid camera. Beneath it lay thousands of Polaroids, each shot lovingly dated in Tim's pristine hand writing. He turned the camera over, studied the small number _one_ that told him how many shots were left in the camera and he turned it around, held it at arm's length and slid his arm around the box of photos, doing his best to keep the tears at a sting in his nose as he offered the most gentle of smiles to the camera and took the shot.

It whirred and began to eject the film and Damian extracted it, held it for a moment and then gingerly set it aside to develop, placing the camera beside it and tugging the box out of the closet completely. 

Tipping the tub over, he watched as the photographs cascaded across the floor, smiled as he began to pick through the photographs, all of them dating back to before Tim had switched to digital. Every candid moment frozen on film caught and held him transfixed, each instance of _family_ and _friends_ , every photo of a sunset or sunrise, of the tops of Gotham's buildings and the rain-streaked pavement of an alleyway at dusk, every single moment Tim had chosen to catalogue left him with his heart beating hard in his chest and his soul feeling _filled_ for once in his life.

The stacks began to form, the ones he pulled for this dream of creating Tim's perfect memorial to his right and the rest to his left. A precious few felt _far_ too personal to display in such a manner and those Damian kept tucked in the space between his crossed legs. A photo of Bruce holding _Damian_ on his hip, Damian fast asleep mere months after he'd come to the manor. He remembered the night leading up to that moment with stark clarity: he'd been sick, almost deathly so, and he'd spent the week prior passing out without warning, had fought through it on his own, too afraid to ask for _help_ , too proud to _admit_ he needed it. He'd sat down for a moment in the study and when he'd woken up, he'd been tucked in bed, smelled of his father's aftershave and his own sweat, and his arm had prickled, the IV they'd inserted providing him with a way to break the day-long fever. 

Beneath that, a few of Tim that someone else had clearly taken: Tim in his family's home, clearly studying something far more advanced than his age, given the titles of the books spread out around him. Tim in some horrible-looking play in a gymnasium. Tim in a coffee shop, his elbow on the table, chin propped on his hand as he offered a lazy look at the camera, a tired sort of happiness in his gaze.

Time marched forward and the stacks grew as Damian pulled more and more of the same sort of _deep_ photos of Gotham and its night out of the piles of photos. He found more and more of the catalogued bruises and their reasons until the size of the Polaroids changed, until the _reasons_ for the bruises changed. Photos of stairs and a black and blue arm, of gashed knees and a boy's tennis shoe among the dirt, of blood on the pavement and Tim's own split lip, his _age_ obvious and the year on the photograph telling a story Damian would never have _believed_.

Years of bullying, of abuse from his fellow classmates came into the pictures, years of helplessness shone through in the subjects of the other photos, interspersed with the happiest of family lives, with the moments of smiles on his subject's faces and tenderness in their gazes. He watched the bitter juxtaposition play itself out: the beauty of home and the terror of _not_.

He watched Tim's life play out before his eyes in each photo, saw the generosity that ran so deeply that it was _inherent_ display itself in the photos of meals handed to the homeless, of loads of filthy clothing going into washing machines in the laundry mat, the water _black_ with filth. He studied the _darkness_ inside a young child in the photos of the worst Gotham had to offer and the _light_ in how he had always done his best to _fix_ it.

He found photos of Dick and Jason out on patrol, blurs of red and green in the darkness. He found one photo of Batman - of his _father_ \- so long ago, so old that the film was yellowing at the edges and the moment captured so _perfectly_ that it was almost _staged_ in how pristine it was. But the angle told another story, told of a child so _determined_ and so _quiet_ that he had found the opportunity to steal this single photograph and squirrel it away. The thumbtack hole in the top told Damian that Tim had placed this - once upon a time - on his wall or a corkboard, had probably _lived_ with this single image as his mantra for every punch he'd taken, for every shove down the stairs and every kick he'd ever felt in his life, and in it Damian saw _determination_.

He placed it on the pile of photos he would put up for display, placed one of each Dick and Jason alongside it and quietly began to fill the bin back up once again. 

Somehow, some _way_ , this was going to become a reality. 

\-----

Damian spent the next few months alternating between throwing himself into everything with the Teen Titans with enough gusto that he didn't have time to _think_ , much less _live_ outside of it and finding days to simply sit in a calm state of existence in the midst of Tim's blankets in what had become his own little home base. It was rare that he spent a day off in Wayne Manor anymore, even more rare that he _slept_ there. 

There was just something about Tim's apartment that provided Damian with the security he craved. The memory of Tim's arms around him, of the comforting words in his worst moments despite all of their differences left Damian feeling both lost and _alone_ and filled with _hope_ for his own future. If only he could _ever_ touch someone's life the way Tim had touched his own...

He spent hours figuring out where he'd like to have Tim's digital images printed and in what sizes, what he wanted on canvas and what he wanted so small it was less than wallet-sized. He spent even longer creating the design of the false walls he wanted to place up within a studio for an _exhibition_ of Tim's work and even more time beyond that building up the spaces for the few actual words that would be displayed. 

His fourteenth birthday came and went, Alfred was the singular person who remembered it, not even his mother visited this year. There were people he couldn’t fault, people he had never told and people he would have kept it from, regardless. And then there were the people he _did_ fault, the ones who stung his heart that they didn't seem to _notice_ him even half as much as they once had. 

He and his father grew distant, only spoke when it was about business and _Dick_ only when it became necessary. Jason came around more and more often and there were days when Damian would show up at the apartment and it would be _lived in_ , as if Jason had been there for weeks; not for the first time, Damian wondered if the _anger_ that welled up within Jason had been calmed by Tim in much the same ways as his own agony had been tenderly embraced. They never said much of anything to one another, but there were nights when Damian would show up and Jason would be geared up and _waiting on him_ , as if he knew Damian's schedule more than Damian himself did.

Those were the nights they took flight together, nights where Gotham's underbelly was left fractured on the streets that ran with their blood. Those were the nights that Damian _slept_ , well and truly finding his rest in the lingering aftermath of what they took down. The days after were always the hardest, finding himself alone again, knowing he had to _leave_ the safe haven of Tim's old home.

Fourteen turned to fifteen before Damian could find the _perfect_ venue for his vision to become a reality. He purchased it outright, _watched_ as the transfer went through and the property went under his own name, his very first acquisition as a _Wayne_. Things tended to be easier in that way: a name to wave around and rules became _flexible_ at the mention of it, his age a non-factor in his ability to acquire such a place.

He hired a private crew of contractors to build the false walls and outcroppings within the gallery and he began the tedious process of ordering every single print he needed. Boxes of photos began to arrive every other week and sometimes he would come home and find a box that Jason had signed for sitting on the coffee table. An entire half of the living room became temporary housing for the project, all of it re-wrapped and re-boxed after he viewed the contents to ensure this remained _his own_ until he was ready to show the world.

Another year drifted past as the construction was completed and the workers paid their severance once Damian was satisfied with how everything had come out and he began the tedious job of _painting_ the entire thing by himself. His time became divided between Teen Titans, working with Jon, and painting the walls of the gallery. Blacks and blues, reds and greens, splashes of yellow and gold - all of it came together into the vision he'd been aiming to create, the walls works of art just as much as what would be placed upon them. Every outcropping told a story, every section a _reason_ for existing. 

Glittering lights were installed in the ceilings over a month-long period, almost every painted wall draped for privacy for the duration of the work. By the time it was completed if Damian turned off the main track-lighting and left only the hundreds of tiny sparkling lights behind it gave the perfect image of Gotham's night sky on a beautifully clear night, and when the sheets were once again removed, if he perched himself _just so_ on the guest book stand at the entrance, it looked exactly like a scale representation of the skyline from Tim's favorite perch. The fronts of each wall provided _Gotham_ and the back, another story: the person _behind_ the mask, or at least that was the intention once all of the photos were to go up.

Months went into moving all of the boxes from the apartment to the gallery without it being _noticed_ , small deliveries being made in the midst of the night, each wall having its own box or crate, each and every one of them labeled and marked with exceeding care over the years. When everything finally came into place, all of the boxes arrived and the apartment once again free of the burden of his project, Damian found his time _moving_ , drifting in location.

He spent more and more time away from the apartment until everything but the bedroom began to feel _foreign_ to him when he did show up there and he realized he had moved Tim's _essence_ to here. He'd put so much of Tim and himself into this that the works themselves held him now. In some ways that made him proud and in others it _hurt_ , that he'd pulled Tim from the confines of his own home and displaced him _even in death_.

The first wall went up on the eve of Tim's death, each carefully tacked Polaroid placed upon the wall with surprisingly _steady_ hands. The spread of Tim's happiest moments in his childhood, interspersed by the _darkness_ that was being created within him. Fifty photos to tell a story without words, without commentary, and Damian left it that way for a week before he came back.

The anniversary of Tim's funeral, of the empty casket they'd buried in a hole in the unforgiving soil, and Damian placed three photos upon a pale gray wall, each miniature Polaroid speaking volumes. Tim's split lit. The blood on the pavement at the base of the stairs. The still of _Batman_. And Damian did what he hadn't been certain he _could_ until that very moment. A single can of glossy red paint and bold streaks forming themselves into two overlapping _R_ 's splashed across the bottom of the gray wall. 

A beginning, a confession, and a _memorial_ to the man Gotham never knew had _saved_ hundreds of them that last night of his life. 

Damian stood, tears streaking down his cheeks, paint dripping onto the floor from his brush.

 _This_ had been Tim's life. It was who he was and who he would _always_ be.

\-----

Every single week, Damian returned to the gallery and spent one entire night piecing together another wall. The third the spray of photographs between what Damian considered Tim's _moment_ where his life had been irrevocably changed to intersect with Batman's and the rest of his _denial_ of that fact.

The kid who tried to take whimsical photos but ended up showing Gotham's darkness. The child who had given pieces of himself to every homeless person he'd ever come across as some way of staving off what was _inevitable_. 

The forth wall became the skyline, the photos of Gotham from the rooftops, the golden and red splashes behind the photos showing just when he'd become _Robin_ , when he'd earned such a badge. The top left and right corners of the wall provided the blur of both Dick and Jason's Robins, respectively. 

Wall after wall filled itself. If not with dozens of incredibly diversely sized photos, then with one single _giant_ canvas, each one harboring a price tag that had more than _hurt_ Damian's private wallet. The center most piece in the room, the only one that was _alone_ upon a clear stand bolted to the floor, was of Gotham, a rainy night in the midst of winter, everything glistening and wet and _beautiful_ despite the fact that the image was of, perhaps, the least beautiful place in all of Gotham: Crime Alley. There, at the top edge of the photograph, was a single shadow out of place, something only this _size_ and attention to detail could provide: _Batman_.

It took him a month before he could return, before he could continue with his project and when he did, he completed three walls in a single day. Three walls of Gotham's beauty, of Tim's _hope_. Three walls showing the person _behind_ the mask, and here - Damian placed one ripped out page of poetry.

**City at Night**  
**\- RM Livingston 1971**

_Monolithic towers, painted structures,_  
Pattern in light.  
Random forms displayed,  
This is the city at night. 

_Monochromatic energy_  
Against a velvet sky,  
On and off by chance  
Never saying why 

_Pulsing with a life_  
Seldom seen, but right  
At one with wind and sky  
For this is the city at night 

_Sometimes playing in the clouds_  
Daily throbbing with the crowds  
A living, working life  
Glowing with compelling light  
Alive for many to use,  
For this is the city at night. 

_In canyons dark and deep_  
In the wind and rain and cold  
There are those with no place to sleep  
And some who just grow old 

_Some are full of love_  
And others filled with fright  
But it always claims its own  
The awesome city at night 

The page, Damian pasted to the wall with great care, lacquered it with even more, making it a piece of the installation that would never be removed. His own contribution to the otherwise complete vision that belonged to _Tim_.

Time dragged onward, the gallery's walls filling up, every installation that needed more light being provided it, every one that needed less shadowed somehow from above until some pieces of Tim's life's work were sheltered away in the depths of _blackness_ that Tim had kept them in when he'd been alive. 

The day finally arrived where Damian placed the final piece upon the wall and _this time_ his hands shook. As with the first wall of the installation, the tears came and this time they left him crouched beneath the final photo, one of Tim and _himself_ and for the first time in all of this, he felt _hesitation_. If the world came to see this, if they walked into this room, everything about Tim's life would be on display and along with it, pieces of their own lives. The people on the streets, the members of his family, friends, and random strangers down on their luck. Gotham _itself_ was on display here; the good, the bad, the _beautiful_ and the _horrible_. 

Damian stood, picked up the last thing in the box at his feet and placed the three laminated pages on the jet black stand to the right of this final image, smoothing his hands over the pages, thumb drawing over the title. _The life and story of one Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne (and why I have chosen to share it with you)_

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Damian turned and walked away, picked up the last of the boxes and shut off the lights as he left. Now there was only a decision to make.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta Readers: kate1zena  
> Song[s]: "Hymn for the Missing" by Red

Damian stood just inside the blacked-out doors to the gallery's entryway. He'd created a screen of sorts that required patrons to filter up past the guest book so that they had to look up across the gallery before making their way down the ramp into the room. The simple words _Look Up_ were written in gold across the top of the podium as a final touch, the only requirement beyond the sweeping glitter of the silvery lines that led the patrons through the exhibit in the correct order, a trail of sorts to follow if only they paid attention to it. 

Damian had made a _point_ to find the people in the photographs over the past few months, had reached out to every random face, every _treasured_ person in Tim's collection: high society to the very last homeless person Tim had photographed and he'd extended the invite to each of them the same. A jet black envelope and a single red invitation card inside stating the date, the time, and that it was a gallery opening with _personal_ relevance to each of them. He's spoken no words in handing them out, not even to family, had only imparted the envelope and its information upon them.

He had found himself at odds with what to wear, had _known_ from how he'd grown up that he should be dressed up, but understood from how he _felt_ that he didn't want to be. He finally settled on a pair of his own black slacks and one of Tim's own favorite button-downs, burgundy that picked up the tone of his own skin, that made the jade of his eyes seem almost frighteningly _deep_. The small gold pin over his heart held two delicate _R_ 's, Red Robin's emblem captured in quiet beauty and the watch upon his wrist was _Tim's_ rather than his own.

Damian watched the second hand tick away, watched it turn over to seven thirteen and he closed his eyes and whispered, "Happy Birthday," as he steeled himself for whatever was to come of this. Opening his eyes, the took the last step to the doors and he opened them, stepping into the doorway and taking in the line of people from every walk of life, standing here _together_ and he understood that this was what Tim would have _wanted_.

Tears burned his eyes and his hands shook as he stepped back and gestured inward, allowing the tears to spill over, to display his _weakness_ in front of all of these people, if only because Tim would never have called it _weakness_. He would have called it strength, would have labeled it as _bravery_ and tucked Damian close against him and pushed his hand through his hair until he'd calmed. Tim... _Tim would have been proud_.

Damian accepted every single handshake, every single _touch_ from the strangers and friends and family in this line. He watched _unfamiliar_ faces join the line, watched the city come alive with people curious as to what was happening, watched people within call others to join them, and he watched the notifications of trending topics in Gotham start to light up with mentions of the gallery and of Red Robin and of _Tim_ , and when he was left standing by the door, the _real_ pain he'd been staving off crashing down on him, it was a _familiar_ embrace that he found himself within. 

It was the scent of the _atmosphere_ and the cleanness of air that only belonged to two people Damian had ever known and for once in his life, he _allowed_ the help of another. He allowed Jon's hand to sift through his hair, allowed his quiet words to calm the bitterness of _pain_ , and he realized that _this_ was what _dealing_ was all about. It wasn't a one-man crusade and it wasn't a thousand memories that cracked his already broken heart. It was letting someone _else_ in and it was accepting that no matter how strong he was, sometimes he just _needed help_ , and that, too, was everything Tim had been about. 

Jon's embrace tightened for an instant before he was holding Damian's shoulders, before he was smiling _so sweetly_ at him. "Happy Birthday, Damian."

Something warm blossomed in Damian's heart, something larger than he'd _expected_ from such a simple consideration, and he allowed their fingers to tangle with one another, allowed Jon's warmth to press against his shoulder as he guided him inside, wiping the tears from his cheeks and lifting his chin to meet the people inside head-on. Tim had left him with a hundred lessons, had left him with memories that could never be erased, and he'd honored all of them except _this one_ and it was well past time that he did.

Because _some battles were better fought with two instead of one_.


End file.
